Dems accuse Trump of ‘witness intimidation in real-time’
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has accused President Donald Trump of “witness intimidation” during impeachment hearings, further building the case to charge him with obstruction in the process.
On Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, was testifying to Congress when Trump tweeted an attack on her.
Prior to Trump’s disparaging tweet, Yovanovitch had already described how she felt personally threatened by the president.
On Twitter, Trump said, “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?"
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
Minutes later, Schiff interrupted the hearing in order to ask Yovanovitch whether she wanted to respond to Trump’s attack.
“I don’t think I have such powers,” Yovanovitch responded. “I actually think that where I served over the years, I and others, have demonstrably made things better.”
Then, Schiff told reporters, “What you saw today — witness intimidation in real-time by the president of the United States.”
“We take this kind of witness intimidation and obstruction of inquiry very seriously,” he added.
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) leadership team, also described Trump's move as “evidence of more obstruction."
“It should be considered for obstruction. It’s evidence of more obstruction, intimidating the witness, tampering with the witness’s testimony."
Meanwhile, some Republicans on the Intelligence panel also expressed uneasiness about Trump’s attacks.
Asked if the tweets were equal to witness intimidation, Republican Rep. Mike Conaway told The Hill: “I am not a lawyer. It’s not something I would do.”
The US House of Representatives held its first public hearings on Wednesday in its impeachment inquiry into allegations that Trump asked a foreign government to investigate a domestic political rival.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump has admitted to actions that amount to "bribery" in the Ukraine scandal, accusing the Republican president of an impeachable offense under the Constitution.
Democrats in the House launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September after a whistleblower alleged the Republican president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
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